There's no magical solution for health care costs, so maybe we should experiment. (Shutterstock)

(Newser)
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The Senate health care plan ensures universal coverage, but when it comes to controlling costs, all it offers is…pilot programs. Sounds pretty flimsy, right? “Two thousand seventy-four pages and trillions of dollars later, this bill doesn’t even meet the basic goal,” complained Mitch McConnell, “to lower costs.” But pilot programs might just be the solution, writes Atul Gawande of the New Yorker. After all, they worked for runaway food prices in the 1900s.

Back then, food prices were choking consumers, and farmers refused to innovate. So the government threw a bunch of pilot programs at them, asking individual farms to try new things. When they worked, they caught on, and American agriculture became the envy of the world. Now, we’re trying that with health care. “Pick up the Senate health-care bill—yes, all 2,074 pages—and leaf through it,” writes Gawande, himself a practicing doctor. It’s almost half test programs. “The bill is a hodgepodge. And it should be.”

You know what else is a miserable failure? ...the non-programs that the GOP came up with when they had power for 24 of the last 32 years.

justme

Dec 7, 2009 9:50 AM CST

Then, perhaps the "try everything" approach might help. I certainly don't believe that our politicians, right or left, actually have all (or any) of the answers. Why not innovate, or just experiment, As long as participation in the pilot programs is voluntary.